


An Unkindness of Ravens

by nitpickyabouttrains



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Blood, Blood and Torture, But somehow this happened, Implied/Referenced Torture, Knife Play, M/M, Midnight, Torture, its hard to say, what were these books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 08:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11665128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitpickyabouttrains/pseuds/nitpickyabouttrains
Summary: Day after day. If they could be called days at all; Neil had all but lost count. All sense of time and place were gone. There was no natural light in the Nest, no new people, nothing from the outside at all. Just the Ravens.





	An Unkindness of Ravens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FlameBlownWhiter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlameBlownWhiter/gifts).



> Happy Midnight, FlameBlownWhiter!
> 
> I didn't know your ship, so I wrote you the fic I wanted. Whoops.

“Wake up,” Jean said, his voice firm and sharp. 

Neil’s eyes flew open, confused and tired. Jean was in the doorway, light shining into the room from behind him, around him, so that he fell into the shadow. Neil could not see his face, but over the past few days, Neil had grown used to the voice. The melodious French lilt, gone soft after years in Virginia. Jean still held onto his accent, to what made him who he was, and Neil envied him for that. That one bit of individuality that made him different. 

Neil had nothing like that. All was lost when he had run: his name, his features, even his own Maryland affect, anything that could tie him to his family. 

Not Jean, though. 

It was one of two voices he heard in the Nest at all, or at least it seemed that way. Riko only spoke about Exy, though, or during punishment. The rest of the Ravens spoke more with their silence. 

He was not welcome there; the team did not need or want him. If not for Riko, Neil would have no reason to be there. Which would have been fine with him. Neil did not want to be there, either. But he didn’t really have a choice. He had given his word, and if he broke it he would be letting down his team, his family, but most importantly, Andrew. 

“What time is it?” Neil asked, sitting up in the bed. 

The question was obvious and stupid. It did not matter what time it was. Over break the Ravens were running 16-hour days; actual time meant nothing. 

There was no down time. Just practice and drills and coming back to the room where he was assigned a bunk. If Riko was there, there was pain, and if the King was absent, there was sleep. 

That was all. 

Day after day. If they could be called days at all; Neil had all but lost count. All sense of time and place were gone. There was no natural light in the Nest, no new people, nothing from the outside at all. Just the Ravens. 

To Neil, it always seemed like the middle of the night. Dark and black. He was tired, so tired, and he knew it would only get worse. 

“We have to be on the Court in ten minutes,” Jean said, by way of an answer. That was how time was counted. That’s all that mattered. The Court and Exy. 

Jean tossed something into the room, toward Neil, and he reached out instinctively to catch it. Training for a sport that needed quick reflexes had done their part, so that even in his half-asleep state, it was an easy grab.  It was a bar of some kind, wrapped in plastic. Breakfast. 

Neil wanted to throw it back to Jean, to hurl it across the room and refuse to eat. He wanted to yell and scream and hide in his bed and refuse the day ahead of him. But he could not. He knew he could not. Not if he wanted to survive the two weeks before New Year’s, not if he wanted to get out of there alive. 

“Thanks,” Neil said, tearing the wrapper, and forcing himself to take a bite. 

It didn’t taste good. None of the food here did. Because the food was not for enjoying, it was for getting the exact right nutrients into the players’ bodies as efficiently as possible, so they could play the game. 

Jean gave a small shrug in response. Neil understood that Jean was not being nice because he liked him - he was doing it for his own benefit. They had been paired off, and for the Ravens that meant accountability. If Neil was late, Jean would be in trouble too. It was self-preservation more than anything else. 

As Neil chewed, he pushed himself up and off the bed, wincing as his sore and injured body felt the strain of his movement. Still, he forced himself up, past the smarting of the black and purple bruise on his thigh, past the pull of the recently-closed cut on his lower back. 

He felt a spot of sticky warmth spreading on his abdomen, and looked down to find that the remains of Riko’s time with him the night before were not yet healed. 

It would not stop him from playing. Riko would not let it stand.

Neil could feel Jean’s eyes on him, but when he looked up, Jean was fixated on the spot of red where his shirt was stuck to his chest. “Let’s go,” Neil offered, the only way he knew how to say he was fine enough to play. 

“Yeah,” Jean agreed, pushing the door open, so they could both pass through. 

Outside, in the hall, it was just as dark, just as black. 

+++

“You played well today,” Riko said, but it did not sound like a compliment. It sounded suspicious and cold. 

Or maybe it was the knife in his hand that made it hard for Neil to think Riko was happy with him or his performance. They had run drills all day, as a team, passing and blocking, regardless of position. Neil had mastered all those drills with Kevin already and had found some peace in the game, in the motions of it all. It had made the day seem less harsh than others. 

Neil knew better than to say any of this to Riko. 

Instead he kept his words simple, spoke as little as possible. “Yes,” he agreed, without putting too much emotion into his voice, too much pride. That would not do either. 

He had no idea how long he had been there, how many times they had done this. It was too hard to keep count, and he had to live one practice at a time. But this was often how the days went, after practice. Him and Riko, returning to their room. 

It never ended well for Neil. 

Riko brought the knife down to Neil’s side, running the flat edge of it along one of Neil’s ribs. Neil had lost weight since getting to the Nest, and his ribs seemed to stick out when he was lying on his back, as he was now. His arms were bound over his head, handcuffed to the posts of the bed, holding him in place. 

Not that he would have attempted to run, not with so much at stake. He had come to the Ravens of his own volition, and he would not leave until his two weeks were up. The consequences were too great. 

The blade of the knife was cold against his skin, and Neil could not help but shiver at its touch. He knew what was coming. 

Riko did not disappoint. 

The knife tilted ever so slightly, so that the sharp edge was pressed against Neil’s skin. It bit into him, sharp and stinging. Neil did not flinch or react, the feeling of the steel in his flesh was strangely familiar. 

Riko was not as harsh as the Butcher had been, nor as creative. He had more than one knife, but this was cleary a favorite, sharp and ready, for moments when he had something to say. He said it with knives. 

“Kevin has done well with you, Nathaniel,” Riko said his voice flat, his eyes narrowed into hard points of black. “Though not for the right position.”

The name was filled with ghosts, and Neil protested internally. That was not who he was anymore, that was not who he chose to be. His eyes were blue again, his hair dyed back to the old color, but Nathaniel was long gone, dead and buried in California with his mother. 

“Yes,” Neil said again, biting down on his lip to keep his frustration inside. 

It was the right position for him as a Striker; he loved Exy and he had found his place in it. It was not as he had played in little league, but that hardly made it wrong. Another transition from Nathaniel to Neil, to who he was now. 

“Next year, you will play for the Ravens, as a backliner,” Riko was not asking, he was stating, like it was a done deal, like Neil had no choice. 

Unlike with every other aspect of his stay with the Ravens, on this Neil would not give in. He would not go along with it. He would not budge. Because the thought of the Foxes was all that kept him going. “No,” Neil said, his voice thin and weak from misuse, but firm. “Sir.”

The knife pressed down harder into his skin, cutting down. Neil could feel the blood running down his skin, the heat of it contrasting starkly with the rest of the cool room. 

“Nathaniel.” Riko said his name slowly, drawing out each sound, each syllable. He rolled the sounds around in his mouth, so that by the time he got to the “-el”, Neil barely remembered how it had sounded at the start. “You will do as I say.”

“No,” Neil said again, this time louder, almost at a normal speaking volume. “Sir.”

Riko’s lips drew into a thin line, his nostrils flared and he let out a slow breath. The knife moved to a fresh location on Neil’s ribs, but this time there was no slow transition. Just force, pressure, applied directly by the knife. Neil forced his eyes to stay open, to stay looking at Riko, as the other boy made a cut into his body. 

“You will sign the contract,” Riko said, but his voice was now thick with emotion. His irritation had brought him closer to the proceedings, to what he was doing and the conversation. 

“I won’t,” Neil said. It was the only thing he was sure of, in his confusing and turned-around life. He was a Fox, not a Raven. 

“I say you will,” Riko snarled, two small red patches appearing on his cheeks. He was speaking quicker now, losing control. 

Neil shook his head, his eyes locked onto Riko’s, a slow movement, as much as he could manage with his hands over his head. A small act of defiance.

Riko huffed out a breath of air, his eyes opening wide, and pulled back his hand in a fist. It came down once, twice, the same fist, the knife still grasped in it, but turned away, so that he was punching and not stabbing Neil’s face. 

The third time it came down, Neil felt a peace overtake him as the world went dark. 

+++

Neil felt something shift on his bed, and his eyes flew open. Or rather, one eye did, as the other one was swollen shut from the beating he had taken the night before. He smirked to himself at the thought. He had gotten under Riko’s skin, resisted, and the other boy had lost his cool. 

He tugged at his wrists and winced when the metal bit into his already cut and bruised wrists. He was still tied to the bed. 

“I wouldn’t bother, if I were you,” Jean said. Neil’s eyes followed the voice to find him sitting at the desk in the corner of the room. He held a set of keys in his hand, rolling them lightly from one hand to the other. It made a soft tinkling sound, soft and sweet, strangely at odds with the rest of the room. “He told me not to unlock you until it was time for practice.”

Neil looked down at his chest, which was still bleeding. “Will you help me clean up?”

Jean froze, his face looking startled at the thought, like it had not even occurred to him. “I don’t think I can.”

“Riko told you not to?” Neil guessed with a sigh. 

“Not in so many words,” Jean said carefully, his hand going to his own chest, where there were no doubt marks from similar sessions in the past. They were both just toys to Riko, stuck playing his game. The difference was, Neil had an out. 

After his two weeks were over he would be able to leave. Riko wanted him to come back, to play with the Ravens, but he would not give in. Jean had no such thought to hold on to. He was there, for life, unless he could not play. Even then, possibly. He belonged to Riko just like Kevin had, just like Riko thought Neil did. 

So while Neil had small moments of holding out, of not giving Riko what he wanted, he knew Jean did not have that luxury. When Neil was gone, it would just be Jean there, at his mercy. He could not risk it, and Neil knew better then to ask. 

Neil nodded his head slightly, inclining it at the other boy. “How much longer until practice?” He wanted to know when he would be untied and he could tend to the wounds himself. Even just cleaning himself off from the sticky bloody mess would be a relief. 

“Not until morning,” Jean said. 

That meant nothing to Neil. He had no idea what time it was. In the Nest, it was always night. 


End file.
